Morning NewsTaco
Tuesday May 8, 2012
The Problem With Romney’s Diverse Vice Presidential Short List (National Journal): From statehouses to Congress to the 2008 primary smackdown between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, Democrats can claim a more diverse party than Republicans. But it’s the GOP that has the top talent poised to compete on the national stage – a major plus as Mitt Romney gets serious about finding a running mate.
Hispanic vote presents electoral map hurdle for Mitt Romney (The Miami Herald): …if Romney can’t narrow Obama’s considerable lead among Hispanic voters, key battlegrounds including Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado and Florida could be out of reach for the Republican nominee. Even reliably Republican Arizona could wind up in play, and Obama already has five campaign offices there.
A political trap Latino voters need to be wary of (Latina Lista): Most Latino voters have been feeling ignored, dismissed and pretty much invisible to the Romney camp up to this point. Though he is considered the presumptive GOP candidate, Romney has yet to soften his tone to show that he can equally be a President for all Americans, including Latinos, rather than just be the designate candidate of the Tea Party or far-right conservatives.
UNM on Hispanic Outlook’s Top 100 College List (UNM Today): The University of New Mexico is featured prominently among the Top 100 colleges for Hispanics, as reported in Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education’s May 7 issue. The magazine gathers information from the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).
Opinion: Could the term ‘Hispanic-American’ unify America’s Latinos? (CNN): “We have been around here a long time, how many of us have you met?” Yet, being polite and not wanting to turn a casual conversation into a politically incorrect racial-social conflict, I usually let it go. So what will unite us, whether we look like Levy, Jessica Perez, Marco Rubio? Perhaps the insistence of one of my Twitter friends, Jorge Ros Sr., is totally right: We should begin to call ourselves “Hispanic-Americans.”
On the rise: Immigrant entrepreneurs (CNN Money): Working for a new company? There’s a more than one-in-four chance your new boss wasn’t born here.
West Chicago names first Hispanic mayor (Daily Herald): Ruben Pineda was only a baby when he arrived in West Chicago with his parents in the early 1960s. They were migrant workers from Texas who were looking for work, and here they found it, in the corn and bean fields of Illinois. On Monday night, Pineda officially became acting mayor of West Chicago and is expected to finish out the term of Mike Kwasman, who died April 17 after suffering a heart attack at a local restaurant.
Child Immigration Is Rising (The Wall Street Journal): South Texas is seeing a rise in children from Central America who have slipped across the border unaccompanied into the U.S. from Mexico after that country began deporting fewer kids who arrived without visas, some experts say.
Colleges look at policies for illegal immigrants (USA Today): Social justice is central to the mission of Dominican University, a small private Catholic college in suburban Chicago. Serving poor immigrants is part of its history. So as the school began to get more applications where Social Security numbers weren’t provided, there was never a question of turning qualified undocumented students away.
Recess Helps African American, Latino Students Perform In Class, Study Says (Huffington Post): While the benefits of physical activity among children has given rise to little, if any, debate, the benefits of midday playtime has. On one end of the spectrum some say that recess poses safety hazards and cuts into much needed instructional time; on the other end of the spectrum, proponents say recess may actually help children perform better in the classroom. A new study from the latter camp shows that time away from the classroom might be especially beneficial for Black and Latino students.
Report says Latino baby boomers face health, economic inequities (Hispanic Trending): Latino baby boomers are likely to experience health and economic inequities similar to their parents as they enter the ranks of the elderly population, according to a recently published article in a special issue of The Gerontologist.
Obesity in U.S. projected to grow, though pace slows: CDC study (Los Angeles Times): Obesity in the United States is projected to continue its rise over the next 18 years, extending to 42% of Americans by 2030, according to a study released Monday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Guilt and Shame of Mental Illness in The Latino Community (Huffington Post): …mental illness among Latinos and whites in the U.S. are about the same but that whites were 60 percent more likely to receive mental health treatment. Only 20 percent of Latinos with a psychological disorder consult a general health-care provider and 10 percent contact a mental-health specialist.
Costa Rican Astronaut Becomes First Hispanic Member of U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame (Hispanic Business): Costa Rican astronaut Franklin Chang was inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame on Saturday afternoon. Chang, 62, is the first Hispanic astronaut to enter the hall of fame.
